State Audit grilled over failure to audit Vinashin
By Ngoc Lan - The Saigon Times Daily
HANOI – Local media grilled the State Audit of Vietnam on Thursday over why the troubled Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin) had not been audited.
Le Minh Khai, deputy head of the country’s key auditing agency, told reporters in Hanoi that an audit of Vinashin was planned in 2008 but was delayed due to the onslaught of the economic crisis.
“The audit has not been done this year since the State Inspectorate has already planned to inspect Vinashin. We cannot let more one investigation happen at a corporation at the same time. This can impact on the company’s operations,” he said.
Khai added Vinashin was audited in 2006 when it remained a State-owned corporation. Since Vinashin was converted into a holding economic group, the State Audit has not looked into it, he added.
He explained that by late 2008 when an auditing plan was done for 2009, Vinashin had been put on the list of entities to be audited. But since the financial crisis swept through the corporate sector, the auditor decided to delay the Vinashin audit.
Last year the State Audit listed Vinashin as one of those subject to audits but this overlapped the State Inspectorate’s examination of the company. “That’s why we have not audited Vinashin. There are no other reasons whatsoever,” Khai added.
At the press briefing, the State Audit announced the results of audits conducted in 2009 for fiscal 2008 at 21 ministries, central agencies, 37 provinces, 31 State-owned corporations, and financial and banking institutions.
The audits showed financial management at the enterprises and financial and banking institutions conformed to regulations. However, total receivables at the audited corporations had amounted to VND26.59 trillion by end-2008, accounting for 19.34% of their total assets. There are a lot of receivables hard to recover due to lack of documents, especially at construction corporations. “Technically these can be considered losses,” the State Audit said.
Meanwhile, financial investments by the corporations reviewed were effective because they as strategic investors acquired shares at par value, while Ben Thanh Corporation and Saigontourist Holding Company incurred losses in share investments made at auction or on stock market.